


Ever Spring Tea Shop

by SilverSpiderArt



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Magic, Magic Revealed, Tea Shop, flower shop, making deals with fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11254917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSpiderArt/pseuds/SilverSpiderArt
Summary: The world is filled with wonders that are so easy to pass by. That don't want to be seen or those walking past simply don't know how to look. Yet, just because they are not acknowledged doesn't make them less real nor does it make their deals less wondrous and dangerous.





	Ever Spring Tea Shop

The first time he set foot in the shop it was for flowers for his boyfriend. He’d been desperate to apologize, to make it right. And as he had been fretting and stressing, as he'd read and re-read the text messages, the door had just been there. 

It was a quaint shop, soft pinks and every sill filled to overflowing with flowers. Tables stood outside with chairs made of curling spirals of black metal. He thought cast iron as was most common in patio furniture but as he dragged his fingers over the surface it was warm and soft as oiled wood. The shop itself was airy and filled with a glowing light, it seemed both bigger and more intimate than it seemed like it should from the outside. The ceilings hung heavy with flowering vines and the windows spilled light into the room in dappled patterns. He couldn’t even tell what the shop was for as he wandered between tables and displays. If he turned his head one way it looked like a tea shop. Yet if he turned around it was clearly a flower shop. Whatever it was, it smelled as crisp and lovely as the first uncurling of Spring, green and virile.

A friendly voice called to him from above. A dapper man swung down from a ladder, his suit as vivid as his flowers and his smile wide, showing off his too white teeth. Short of stature but huge of personality. Before he even knew it the man whose name was a flower, had him set at a table a cup of tea freshly steeped in hand. He poured out his soul to the flower man, telling him more secrets and truths than he’d told his own sister. His tongue looser than it had been even in childhood when he'd never really had a secret worth keeping. Each sip of the strong and calming brew made it easier to keep talking. 

As he told his tale the florist’s fingers worked, plucking flowers from pots, only it was so strange, for the pots where flower beds. The plants still growing with roots too deep and strong for such small pots. The flower named man snipped the stems cleverly though there never seemed to be a pair of snips visible. When his tea cup was empty and his tale told, a bouquet was presented to him along with words. Words he should say in a very particular order. The words were things he’d said himself during his outpouring of emotion but repackaged much neater than he ever could have managed himself. As neat and tidy as the beautiful bunch of flowers. 

He hardly recalled how much it had all cost him. Hadn’t even really remembered paying… but he must have. Surely had. He could recall the feeling of having paid if not the actual act. The whole thing was a blur. But it worked and that was what mattered. The words spoken truly from the heart, the flowers passed from his hand to his lovers. Acceptance. Love. Forgiveness. Until the thoughts of the little shop that had saved his relationship were all but faded with the wilting of the flowers. Until just a single ribbon remained, a lucky charm of sorts, a reminder to be truthful and trusting of his beloved.

The second time he saw the shop he was simply thirsty. And there it was, on the corner on the next street as if it had always been. How had he always missed it?

It was just as inviting as before, perhaps bigger than before. The tea fresh and a deep chocolate undertone with a minty crispness. The flower named man told him all the places the blend had come from, about how it was brewed, and all the other sorts he could try but the words slipped easily from his mind. It was simply too pleasant to be here… time seemed motionless… irrelevant... His tongue so loose as he told story after story of his childhood. Of his work. Of the people in his life. The flower named man was such an avid listener, engaged in even the most trivial tale. As comforting to speak with as an old friend.

Then she walked in. Not through the front but from the back. A door that he’d failed to ever notice before… it seemed to lead outside and he found himself rising, curious, as the woman spoke to the tiny flower man. There was something about the woman, the way she moved, the way she smiled, but she couldn't hold his attention long. His eyes followed the path she'd taken. The door lead to a courtyard? How was there even space for it in the center of the city? A greenhouse, maybe? Flowers spilled out and gave way to vegetables and twisting saplings and bird calls. Small insects buzzed past his head and he swore he saw a house… just past that flowering bush…

A hand fell onto his shoulder with a grip like ironwood. Fingertips pressing into his flesh and rooting him to his spot. Her smile was gentle, her words inviting, but their meaning clear. He wasn’t welcome where he was treading. This place was not meant for him.

Weeks later, as he looked back, he assured himself that he’d simply wandered into the employee’s area. That he’d been tried from the heat, his eyes playing tricks. Yet…

By the time he saw the shop a third time he’d already been studying magic for several years. He’d learned spells for seeing and for finding. This time it wasn’t found by accident. 

He took up that bit of the ribbon that had once held his flowers. The ribbon tied by the flower man’s hand in what he saw now had to have been a spell. With blossoming talent he ran his fingers over the silken strands, tracing out the fragments of lingering power still so much stronger after nearly a decade than any is small talents could manage. The new spell he wove into the silken strands made his fingers tingle as he chanted but he continued. It was everything he'd learned. Everything he'd practiced. To bring him back to the place from which the ribbon had come. To let him see that which was masked from his eyes.

Tied into a loop he peered through it as he wandered the city, letting the tingles and gentle tugs guide his feet. There where shadows he’d not seen before, things that made him change paths and once he thought he might hurl. He closed his fist around the ribbon. Closed his eyes shut tight. There was no smell. No sound to confirm what he’d glimpsed. Nothing like that could be real, surely. Maybe… maybe… but the image would not leave him mind. He nearly gave up right then… but a block away, he lifted the ribbon once more.

Suddenly there it was. The shop was glorious, seemed to glow with every flower until the walls themselves seemed alive and breathing. The shelves reached so high that he felt like a mouse and just as much eager greed at what wonders might be held there that he could sample. Even the smells were stronger, intense as a jungle and humid until he struggled to breathe. He had to put the ribbon down, his eyes watered from the sight of it all, ears ringing and breath fast. And there was the flower named man, so gorgeous in the way the sun played off his dark skin and highlighted his unnaturally red hair. He seemed to bounce and jump as he spoke to the woman. She was beautiful too, though he’d never had much of an eye for women. Youthful and animated, her smile brilliant as she laughed at the joke the flower man told. Neither seemed to notice him were he stood. The shop seemed so much more private than before... he felt... unwelcome... uninvited... intruding on a private moment... but he'd come all this way, learned so much to get here... The ribbon clutched in his fist seemed to burn his palm but he raised it to his eye regardless. Eyes open wide, longing to know, to understand.

The hand that held the teacup wasn’t a hand. Could never be described as one. It was hard to even see it, to focus on it. On were the flower named being ended and the shop began. He could see eyes. So many eyes. Everywhere. Unblinking. It was as if every plant had eyes yet the eyes didn't belong to the plants. He could see then that his presence wasn’t unknown. He watched the eyes watching him. 

A flicker of light drew his gaze. Strings. They trailed through the room as gossamer. Glowing and twinkling as starlight. Where they went he wasn’t certain, but where they started was easily found. At the table. Bent over it. Her horns curled back and spiraled, amazing and terrible. Her feet disappeared into the earth as tree roots, her arms jangled and clacked, filled with knick-knacks. Her open eyes were a twilight field of stars as the room filled with the scent of old books the chattering of distant song, something ancient and familiar and new. Ancient and in the blossom of youth. She turned to face him, mouth opening to speak...

He became aware that he was screaming. The sound filling the shop which wasn’t a shop. His eyes had been closed for some time but he could still see her. Could still see the eyes that always watched. Would always watch.

A hand as gentle as flower pedal and as sharply cutting as a honed knife touched his cheek. Words were spoken, soft as a new leaf unfurling and just as unstoppable. 

The man that returned home to his husband was much duller than the one who had left that morning. His eyes tended to glass over, his thoughts much slower. Every day he returned to the teashop, the flower shop. He learned every day, the secrets that he'd so longed for. The magic he'd yearned for. Though his husband worried, the new job seemed to calm his obsessive man, seemed to steady his mind. The man he loved was still there. Still himself. Just a little less… and a little more.

If one knew how to look… they might see that he had too many eyes. Eyes that didn’t belong to him.

What he might tell, if asked, was to be careful and always respectful of the business hours of faeries and that what is _Seen_ can never be unseen. 


End file.
